


Let's Get Married

by BaronessEmma



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Because we all need some escape fic right now, Cute, F/M, Fluff, Songfic, fluffy fluff, proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-03 18:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24520360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BaronessEmma/pseuds/BaronessEmma
Summary: They've been dating for fifteen years, and living together for ten. Jaime finally pops the question, in the most outrageous way he can.Modern day AU. For the world is awful, and we all need to go over the sea to Skye.
Relationships: Claire Beauchamp/Jamie Fraser
Comments: 18
Kudos: 82





	Let's Get Married

"Sae how was yer day, Sassenach?"

"Eh."

"That good, huh?"

My partner for fifteen years smiles as he takes my coat, then leans in and pecks me on the cheek.

"Well, you know how things can get. They don't call it 'the daily grind' for nothing."

"Aye, even teaching has its dull routines."

"Mmm. True enough."

Though, for all of my current boredom with my everyday 9-to-5 job, getting 'Fraser's Florals' up and running had been an adventure and a half. Even renting property in Boston ten years ago had been a struggle. With Jamie just starting his job as a Romance Languages professor at Harvard, and me with a cat, a lifelong love of flowers, an Associates in Business Management, and not much else to my name - and both of us in the middle of the immigration process - it had been seventeen kinds of complicated just to meet with the property manager on time.

The name had been my idea. I'd said that the alliteration more than compensated for the fact that it wasn't my name - and if we ever got rich enough to afford lakefront property, we could call our stretch of shore "Beauchamp's Beach". Jamie had laughed, shaken his head, and said, "Et's bettar than 'Sassenach Soil', a'tennyrate."

I was never sure if he'd meant the flower shop or the beach.

"Aye, if gradin' is'no a 'daily grind', then I dinnae ken what is."

"Well, things were just dull today, that's all." I sink down gratefully onto our living room couch, "And maybe I feel like I'm getting old."

"Old?" he says, with flattering disbelief, "Ye'er no' even twenty-five, if I'm rememberin' correct." He hands me a glass of wine, his eyes twinkling mischievously.

"I'm thirty-seven, and you know it, my lad."

"Oh really?" he sits down right next to me, brushing my curls back over my shoulder and giving me a soft, tickling kiss under the ear, "I could've _sworn_ yer next birthday was yer twenty-fifth." He nibbles on my earlobe, making me squirm and giggle like teenage girl with her first crush.

"For someone who made such a big deal out of turning thirty-three last month, you sure are willing to forget I'm four years older than you. . ."

"Aye, well, thirty-three is when all Hobbits come of age, ye ken."

"Aren't Hobbits short? And from New Zealand?"

"Agch! One of these fine days ye'er goin' tae _havetae_ let yerself be educated on Tolkien, mo ghràidh. The Shire essentially _is_ Scotland. And the films were _shot_ in New Zealand, tha' doesnae mean that's where the _story_ is set."

"So. . . Hobbits are still short, then?"

He laughs his long, delighted laugh, and runs a hand soothingly up and down my spine, "Ye'er as stubborn as a Fraser, mo chridhe."

"Does that mean _you're_ as stubborn as a Beauchamp?"

"Ye'ed bettar believe it, Sassenach," he says, then levers himself up from the couch, and goes to the kitchen to make dinner.

I sip at my wine for a few more minutes, and then go set the table.

Just another day in the life of Claire Beauchamp and James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser.

We're happy, healthy, safe, and in love. We have jobs we like, a house, two cats, and enough in the bank to feel secure for our foreseeable futures.

I sigh a little.

Just a _bit_ of adventure wouldn't be bad, would it?

We've talked off and on about going back to Scotland to visit Murtagh, Jenny, Ian and the kids, but Murtagh was just here for Jamie's birthday, and Ian won't be back from his tour overseas for another six months. Spending the time and money to fly to Scotland just doesn't make sense until then.

And I'm bored _now_.

It's the first-est of First World problems, I know. But I just can't shake the doldrums, it seems. Maybe I'm inventing the Third-Life crisis or something, I don't know. . .

Jamie brings dinner to the table, and immediately cheers me up with some hilarious quotes from papers he's gotten lately, and if I sigh into my spaghetti bolognese a few times, he wisely takes no notice.

A few days later, when he greets me in the hall, he's practically hopping from foot to foot.

"Agh, good, ye'er home," he says, briskly taking my coat and kissing my cheek. It would be an exact repeat of every other day this week except that he's so _eager_. . .

"Come in'ta the livin' room, I've something tae show ye." He practically drags me there, and almost shoves me down into a chair he's placed in the middle of the room for some reason.

I look around for what he wants to show me, but nothing is different about the room except for the chair I'm sitting in, and a small pile of paper slips stacked on the end-table near the door.

"Jus' ye sit there, Sassenach, an' I'll be right back, aye?" He grins, and rushes out of the room.

I haven't seen him this excited since. . . well, since our first date, actually. Me, twenty-two, newly un-engaged, only in Inverness because I was aimlessly trying to find my way in a world where I could no longer turn to my parents, my uncle Lamb, _or_ Frank, and him, only just eighteen and about to go to university in Paris, taking me to the planetarium his uncles owned, laying on the floor with me and showing me constellations, telling me he'd give me the sky. . .

That night, I was his first kiss. And I've been his first everything else since then. People said I was mad to follow a mere boy to Paris for four years, but I said, "Where _should_ I follow him then? Paris sounds just right to me!", and blithely went off to follow my dreams.

And Jamie hasn't let me or my dreams down yet.

Whenever people ask why we aren't married, I give them a puzzled look and say, pointedly, "We're not? That's news to _me_!", because it's true. A few weeks after we got settled here in Boston, Jamie suggested we do a handfasting ritual, privately, just between the two of us. I was skeptical, but I could see how much he wanted to, and so I said yes.

We've considered ourselves more than married ever since. Jamie says it's only soulmates who can rely on a handfasting alone to marry them, and that's why it worked so well for us.

I blush every time he says it, because whenever he does, he's invariably staring at me doing something mundane, and a moment later he'll proclaim me the most beautiful woman he's ever seen. And _then_ he'll prove it. If you can call passionate lovemaking proof.

Which, oddly enough, I do.

He walks back into the room now, with his I-Pod in one hand and a karaoke mic in the other.

"Oh _no_. . ." I say, and immediately start to laugh.

My lovely Scot, much as I adore him, cannot sing.

At _all_. . .

He gives me a sharp look, throws his head back, punches a button on the I-Pod, waits for the music, holds up the mic, and. . .

" _We've been, going together,_  
 _Too long to be vague_  
 _When there's something to say._  
 _If it's not now then it's never!_  
 _So I'll say it straight out,_  
 _'Cause I have no doubt, no doubt!_  
 _Let's get married!_ "

I sit there gaping, not laughing at all. His singing is terrible, but. . .

But. . .

This. . . this man. . .

He grabs the top slip of paper from the end-table and hands it to me. I look down to read it - (You've been down, my love, and I wanted to make ye laugh. I mean the proposal, though. I'm dead serious about that part. . .)

I look back up at him, not knowing what to say. I don't have to say anything, though, because he continues singing.

" _I love you and I want to stay with you._  
 _Let's get married!_  
 _Have kids and grow old and grey with you_."

He hands me the next slip - (Any kids are fine with me - did ye ken I've always wanted to adopt?)

My jaw can't drop any further, so I just sit there and listen.

" _Let's get married!_  
 _Hold hands, walk in the park_  
 _You can get a cat as long as it barks_."

The next slip says - (It's just a line in the song, Sassenach - ye ken I like your wee cheeties.)

Yes, he likes Adso and Geordie well enough. But, they're still 'mine'. Not 'ours'. . .

" _We know other people,_  
 _Who drifted apart,_  
 _Who broke each other's hearts_."

(And I still haven't forgiven him for that, ye ken. Fifteen years and I'd still like to wring his cheating neck.)

Briefly, my forehead wrinkles at the memory of Frank. But Jamie's off-key singing soon puts a smile back on my face.

" _But we ain't other people,_  
 _So we'll do things our way,_  
 _We're gonna be okay,_  
 _We're gonna be more than okay_. . ."

(We'll be wonderful. Astounding. Extraordinary. Miraculous.)

I grip the slip of paper like it's going to fly away from me. My dearest, darling love, I don't think I've _ever_ loved you as much as I do at this moment.

" _Let's get married,_  
 _We're ready for tying the knot,_  
 _Let's get married,_  
 _Set the seal on the feelings we've got,_  
 _Let's get married!_ "

(In public. With witnesses. So everyone kens we belong to and with each other. And that we always have.)

How can I be this happy _and_ this ready to cry? I've always known Jamie was _the one_ , but. . . but. . . he's _really the one_. How have I loved him so long without knowing that as fully as I know it right now?

" _We can make each other happy or we can make each other blue_  
 _Yeah, it's just a piece of paper, but it it says, "I love you."_

(And I do, mo nighean donn. More than words can ever say.)

I'm _definitely_ crying now. . . and grinning at the same time.

" _For the good times,_  
 _For the days when we can do no wrong._  
 _For the bad times,_  
 _For the moments when we think we can't go on_."

(But we always will, together.)

" _For the family,_  
 _For the lives of the children that we've planned,_  
 _Let's get married_!"

(Fur children are also good, if ye don't want to be messing with the Human kind.)

My grin softens into a wistful smile. We've talked about kids, but they've never happened. Clearly, we need to talk about them again. . .

" _C'mon darlin', please take my hand_  
 _And I'll be the one,_  
 _Who's by your side,_  
 _I'll be the one,_  
 _Still taking pride,_  
 _When we're old if they ask me,_  
 _"How do you define success?"_  
 _I'll say, "You meet a woman_  
 _You fall in love,_  
 _You ask her and,_  
 _She says, 'Yes.'"_

(And that _would_ be a success, my lass.)

" _Let's get married,_  
 _I love and I want to stay with you!_  
 _Let's get married,_  
 _Have kids and grow old and grey with you!_  
 _Let's get married._  
 _Hold hands when we walk in the park,_  
 _All right, you can get a cat, just as long as it barks_."

(I _would_ like a dog - if ye don't object.)

Anything, my lad, for you. . . and I don't object. I never did. You could have had fifty thousand dogs if you'd wanted. . .

" _For the good times,_  
 _For the days when we can do no wrong._  
 _For the bad times,_  
 _For the moments when we think we can't go on_."

(I wouldn't go through them with anyone else but you.)

Neither would I, my sweet, sweet man.

" _For the family,_  
 _For the lives of the children that we've planned_."

(I mentioned adoption, aye? Well, the old-fashioned way is good with me too. ;)

Yes, a further discussion about kids is in order. . .

" _Let's get married!_  
 _C'mon darlin', please take my hand,_  
 _Please take my hand_!"

The music stops, and so does he. I clutch my little sheaf of papers to my heart, like a bouquet of roses.

Then, he's down on one knee, holding out his mother's pearl ring he got re-sized for me three years ago. I'd always admired it, and he wanted me to be able to wear it sometimes.

"Will ye wear it all the time now, Sassenach?"

I kneel on the floor next to him, and throw my arms around his neck.

"When the man asking is the only man who has ever made me this happy? How can I say anything but yes?"

We take our honeymoon on the Isle of Skye.

It's the adventure of a lifetime.

_fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Link to the song - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEpmUUEkrKM


End file.
